1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an improved mop having an absorptive element which has been skip slit.
2. Prior Art
The more well known and popular absorptive elements of mops are those formed of numerous strands of fibrous absorbent material such as cotton. Cotton or similar fibers are typically spun into long cylindrical yarns which make them quite suitable for use in mops. However, cotton and similar fibers have certain disadvantages which makes their use not entirely satisfactory. Such disadvantages include relatively high cost to produce, a tendency to leave lint or broken segments on the freshly cleaned surface, and relatively heavy weight as compared to cleaning implements formed of sponge materials such as cellulose.
Various attempts have been made to utilize felt, cellulose or other sponge or foam sheet material, and the like, which has been slit to provide a multitude of strands of this material as an absorptive element. U.S. Pat. No. 4,097,952 discloses a mop which utilizes such an absorptive element. While such a mop may avoid the problems associated with utilizing cotton or similar materials, it has its own problems due to the inherent weakness of the sponge absorbent material which causes the strands to readily break, particularly when they are wet near their capacity with water which creates a relatively high force on the upper portion of the strand as the mop is lifted through the air. Additionally, such a stranded mop element has difficulty making uniform surface contact with the floor being mopped because the stranding process produces rectangular or square cross-section strands which tend to lie in a haphazard way as the mop is applied to the floor and which tend to tangle easily. This haphazard and many times tangled arrangement inherently causes some of the strands to lie on their corners rather than on a flat side, reducing the contact area by a considerable degree.